This Kiss is Forever
by illrain666
Summary: If love gave you a second chance, would you recognize it? Sequel to 'Last Kiss'.
1. Chapter 1

One

_Escape_. That was her only thought. When they hurt her, when they made her do the lessons over and over again till she believed she would go mad, when they strapped her to the machine so that the woman with the cold eyes could make her scream with pure agony, the word made her hold on. Kept her from breaking. _Escape_. _Get free_.

She didn't know much of anything except what they taught her. Apart from that one word that they couldn't burn out of her mind, she was like the others. She marched with her eyes straight ahead, she slept once the lights went out, she killed when she was ordered to. But there was something about her that was wrong, that was different. They placed her in the machine countless times to try to figure it out. The cold-eyed woman was especially interested to know the answer. Maybe it was that word.

_Escape_.

When they came into her cell with the needles again, she finally acted on that desperate impulse. It was easy enough to snap the necks of the men in the white coats and to shoot down the black-clad enforcers with their own guns. She managed to get through the first two levels of the facility in this way. She fought past startled technicians and guards without encountering any real resistance. But, by the third level, they knew that she was coming. They waited for her by the doors with the intent to kill her on sight. More than a dozen weapons were aimed at her when she appeared. Gunfire erupted immediately.

"Report! Damn it, report!" The colonel in charge shouted in anger. He was in the main control room following the incident on the surveillance monitors when all screens suddenly blacked out. "Did those idiots take out the cameras? What the hell is happening?"

"Some kind of electrical disruption, sir."

"Then fix it!" he ordered. "I want to know what's happening!"

"Colonel Roslin? Sir!" a voice suddenly crackled out of the comm link. He recognized it as belonging to the captain of the security detail. "She got through us, sir! We're re-deploying!"

"What do you mean she got through?" he demanded. "We didn't make those things bulletproof!"

There was a long silence.

"Captain? How did she get past you and your men?" He repeated the question twice, louder each time.

"Sir -," the captain clearly sounded like he would much rather not be speaking right now. "She - the bullets seemed to just go through her, sir."

The colonel glared at everyone in the control room. "We're at condition red. No one leaves his post until we recover the subject. You!" He pointed to his communications officer. "Get me the Director."

A minute later, he was handed the phone.

"And what could possibly be important enough for you to interrupt my evening, Colonel?" The Director's cool tone grated on his nerves.

"Bad news, Ma'am," he said abruptly. "One of the templates escaped."

"Which one?" The cool voice suddenly sounded dangerous.

"It's number Eight."

The line went dead.

Colonel Roslin bit back a curse. He absolutely hated that woman.

Emma Frost was a bitch.


	2. Chapter 2

Two

He was going to kill Bobby Drake. He was going to take his fork, and stab it into his best friend's eyes. Then he was going to rip him apart limb by limb and beat him over the head with his own appendages. And, he was going to do all of that – as soon as this stupid blind date was over.

John Allerdyce scowled at Bobby and his fellow traitor, Jubilation Lee. They carefully avoided his eyes, though. They were damned guilty, and they both knew it. They convinced him to go see a godawful chick flick under false pretenses. He didn't mind that the movie was crap or that it was a chick flick; he liked to think that he was magnanimous enough to forgive them for that; but to fix him up on a date with one of Jubilee's friends, again, that was just unforgivable.

"So, John, what do you like?" his 'date' asked him.

He tried to remember her name. Brenda something, maybe. "What do you mean?"

She giggled. She did that like every two minutes. He had timed her. "I mean, you obviously didn't like that movie. So, what movies do you like then? What songs? What bands? Anything that you like."

He regarded her coolly. "Girls who swallow," he said distinctly. Bobby choked on his hotdog and Jubilee gasped in mortification. The evening ended rather abruptly after that remark. In the car, on the drive back to the mansion, Bobby cast him a furious look. "I can't believe you said that to Jubilee's friend! What is wrong with you? She was a nice girl!"

"Then _you_ should have been her date!" John was sprawled on the backseat. In a sudden fit of annoyance, he smacked Bobby's head. Then he kicked the back of the driver's seat.

"Are you out of your mind?" Jubilee glowered at him over her shoulder before turning her attention back to the road. "I almost crashed us into a tree!"

"And you!" he glared at her. "Seriously, that Barbie was the best you could pimp?"

"Watch your mouth, Allerdyce! Brandy is one of the sweetest people I know!" Jubilee steadied the car. "And could you not blame me? It was all Bobby's idea!"

"_Drake_?!"

"Hey! Whatever I did, I did out of friendship," Bobby defended himself.

"I don't appreciate this particular example of friendship," he retorted testily. "How many times do I have to tell you guys that I'm not interested in dating anyone?"

There was silence for a moment, then Bobby said softly, "It's been three years, John. When are you gonna let go?"

"Tell you what. The day you stop asking Miss Grey to look for Rogue, I'll let go," he snapped back.

"That's not fair," Bobby whispered.

"Of course it's not fair." John's tone was bitter. "At least _your_ girlfriend's still alive somewhere."

"Guys, please." Jubilee was upset by the sudden tension.

"Sorry, Jubes," Bobby said. No one spoke again until they arrived at the mansion. As soon as Jubilee parked the car in the garage, John got out and loudly slammed the door shut. He stalked off without another word to either of them. Bobby looked at Jubilee and sighed. "All in all, I think that went rather well, don't you?"

"Yeah," she nodded in agreement. "He didn't try to set us on fire this time."

He sighed again. "I'm just really worried about him," he told her. "He's been having the nightmares again."

"What? But I thought Miss Grey was helping him with that."

"Whatever she does works only for a short time. The nightmares always come back. He's woken me up for the past two nights with his screaming. But when I try to talk to him about it, he pretends it's not happening."

"Does he still say the same things?" she asked.

"He does." Bobby nodded sadly. "He still screams her name."


	3. Chapter 3

Three

"Tell me again exactly what happened."

The captain sweated under the Director's hard gaze. She had always unnerved him. The way she treated those templates, - even if they weren't human, still they didn't deserve to be subjected to all the tortures she and her scientists had devised. He cleared his throat before speaking. "We followed the protocol, Ma'am. We moved to terminate before she could escape."

"Yet she still escaped. What went wrong?" She leaned back in her chair, waiting for his answer.

This was the part he really didn't want to explain. Because he really didn't know how to explain it. "We opened fire," he said, "but that didn't stop her. She ran right at us, and – she passed right _through_ me, Ma'am. Like she was some kind of ghost."

Her next question surprised him. "How did it feel?" she wanted to know.

He blinked. "Feel? It was, - it was like I was scattered in that moment when she went through me. It was a deeply unsettling experience, Ma'am."

"I'm sure it was." She gave him a wintry smile. "You're dismissed, Captain Park. Report to Colonel Roslin for your orders."

"Yes, Ma'am."

As soon as he was gone the third person in the room, who had been silent all this time, finally spoke up. "So, she's been activated."

Emma Frost frowned at her chief of research. "Apparently so. I wonder what the damn trigger was."

"Well, maybe when your soldier boys get her back, we'll finally find out," he said.

"Are you enjoying this, Callis?" she asked. "You look amused."

The scientist merely shrugged. "I always told you that Eight was not a good candidate for the program."

"And here we go again," she sighed.

"You ripped her out of her body, Emma, when she was still conscious! All our experiments showed that the best method of extraction was to strip away the personality during sleep. You should have let that Rogue absorb her energies like she did with all the other subjects."

"But I didn't. She was still successfully imprinted."

"Imprinted, yes, but conditioned? She's resisted us every step of the way! Now she's escaped! And you can't even find her telepathically."

"And whose idea was it to make the templates resistant to telepathic probes?"

He gave her a twisted little smile. "Well, we've both made mistakes then."

"Yes, we have," she nodded, "but are we going to keep blaming ourselves?"

"No." He shook his head. "I suppose not."

"Excellent. Anyway, apart from this little mishap, the program has been a complete success," she pointed out. "We've created something truly wonderful here. With my gift, and your brilliance, we've progressed from simple brainwashing to this procedure. Imagine. An army of soldiers, with mutant powers. We don't even need to have the originals, and go through all the trouble of training them. Let the Rogue just suck a bit of their personalities and their abilities, then we imprint them onto our pre-conditioned templates, find the psychological trigger that activates the undefined X gene, and we have an assembly line."

"Except we seem to have misplaced our number Eight," he reminded her sarcastically.

"We'll get her back." She sounded very certain of it. "She has nowhere to go. As far as the world is concerned, Katherine Pryde is dead."


	4. Chapter 4

Four

_She was waiting for him._

_She was always waiting for him, standing at the very edge of the walkway inside Cerebro. She watched him as he moved toward her._

_"Kitty, be careful," he said. "You'll fall."_

_"What do you care?" She took a step backward._

_"I care. I love you!" She had to believe that was true._

_"No, you don't." She shook her head and smiled at him. It was her killer's smile. "You let me die."_

_She jumped as he screamed her name._

John woke up, gasping. He looked at Bobby who was, thankfully, still asleep on the other bed. He hadn't freaked him out by screaming aloud this time, at least. He got out of bed and left their room. He let his feet take him aimlessly through the silent, dark mansion until he found himself staring at the flickering images on a large TV screen. Jones, as usual, was up.

"Anything good on?" he asked as he joined the school's resident insomniac on the couch.

"There's a Hilary Duff movie marathon," Jones told him. "I sat through ten minutes of 'The Lizzie Maguire Movie', and I never wanted to fall asleep so badly before in my entire life."

"I hear you can actually survive one of her movies if you chew at least one of your legs off," John said.

"Oh." He nodded. "Good to know."

"What are you boys watching?"

Carol Danvers sauntered into the room. John immediately wished that he was somewhere else far, far away, preferably in another galaxy if possible. But, no such luck. She sat between them and picked up the remote, flipping quickly through several channels. "Hey! Hilary Duff!" She smiled at John. Jones rolled his eyes.

He stood up. "You know what? I'm going to bed!" he said, ignoring John who desperately mouthed 'No!' several times behind Carol's back. "Goodnight, and good luck!" He left the two of them alone.

John made a mental note to set the little shit's things on fire later. He scooted over to the other end of the couch, leaving a sizable gap between him and Carol. She noticed but she chose not to comment on his action. Instead, she asked, "Having trouble sleeping again?"

"Not really, no. Just wanted to watch TV for a bit," he replied. He really didn't want to be spending time alone with her like this. She made him feel uncomfortable.

Since she had come to the school a year ago, Carol Danvers had been making him feel uncomfortable a lot. She was always very nice, and sweet. And she made it very obvious that she was attracted to him. But he just wanted to run the hell away from her. Like he kept telling Bobby and Jubilee, and startled strangers whenever he saw that Carol was within earshot, he really was not interested in dating anyone. No matter how gorgeous they were.

"You know," she said, "there's this movie playing at the mall, and I was wondering –?"

"I probably already saw it," he cut in before she could finish speaking. "I spent the day at the mall with Bobby and Jubilee."

"Okay," she nodded. "Well, if you ever wanna see it again, or something else, -"

"I don't think so." He was being rude, he knew, but he just couldn't be sensitive of her feelings right now.

She looked hurt, but she still managed to smile at him. "All right."

He suddenly felt like the biggest jerk in the world. "Maybe -," he sighed then continued, "Maybe next time, okay?"

She knew he was lying, but she also recognized the John Allerdyce version of an apology when she heard one. "Yeah. Sure. Next time then.'

"Okay. I think I'll go to bed now." He stood up to leave, but she moved quickly and grabbed his arm.

"John, wait."

He refused to face her. "What is it, Carol?"

"She's dead," she told him in a soft voice. "You're not."

He shook his arm free from her grasp. "You don't get to talk about her," he said gruffly. "Don't you ever talk about her."


	5. Chapter 5

Five

She was tired and she was hungry, but she didn't dare stop running. The last time she did that, the enforcers had almost caught up with her. Since then, they had been just a few steps behind her in pursuit. She didn't know where she was or where she was going, but she knew she had to keep moving. She mustn't let them catch her.

She thought she could evade them in the woods, but they never even faltered in their hunt. She knew that they didn't intend to kill her anymore, or she would have taken a bullet in the back by now. No, they wanted her alive. They wanted to take her back to the facility, where they could rip her apart again. This certainty made her run faster in desperation.

There were voices. At first she thought that they were the same ones she heard in her head sometimes, but they became louder and clearer with every second as she ran. People. There were other people nearby. She moved toward the voices.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I swear to God you'll all be serving detention once we get back to the school!" John Allerdyce shouted in exasperation. The kids he was supposed to be in charge of merely snickered at his futile attempts to get them in line. "You, lava boy! Get down from that tree! And you, girl in the orange sweater, stop pulling that other girl's hair!"

"Well, you definitely won't be father of the year," Jubilee remarked laughingly as she walked up to him. "Don't you even know _any_ of their names?"

"What the hell for?" He scowled. "Hey! I _saw_ that, you little punk! – Who's the shithead who thought a camping trip with these monsters would be a good idea?"

"I would be that shithead." Miss Grey chuckled at his sudden embarrassment. "Relax, John. Deep breaths. This is supposed to be a fun, communing-with-nature kind of experience."

"Well, with all due respect," he said, "our ancestors evolved to get _away_ from the trees. This is an insult to their memory."

"I'll apologize to them later," Miss Grey assured him. "Right now, aren't the two of you supposed to be helping the kids set up camp?"

"Right!" Jubilee nodded, looking guilty. "I was just on my way to do that! Uhm – where are my kids again?"

"Over there." Miss Grey pointed.

"Okay!" She made her way to a group of bawling children.

"You go, mother of the year!" John called after her.

"So," Miss Grey smiled at him, "how have you been sleeping?"

"Better," he told her, "since our last session."

"Good," she nodded. "Just don't hesitate to come to me at any time, okay?"

"Sure."

"All right." She looked like she wanted to say something more to him, but a sudden scream cut through the air.

A girl, it looked like a girl, had crashed into their campsite, frightening several of the children. Her black hair was tangled with bits of leaves and twigs. Her face was streaked with dirt. She was wearing something that resembled a hospital gown but it was torn in several places and splattered with what looked like blood. Her eyes were wild and scary as she gazed at them.

"Everyone," Miss Grey said loudly, "pack up. Hurry. We're going back to the school."

"But we just got here!" Jubilee protested.

"Do it!" she ordered. She seemed afraid, and the thought of Miss Grey afraid was the spur the students needed. While everyone else grabbed their things and scrambled back to the bus, she walked toward the strange newcomer. John, worried for her safety, followed behind her.

For a long moment, the telepath and the girl just stared at each other. Miss Grey glanced toward the woods briefly then looked back at the girl. "They'll be here soon," she said. "Come with us. We'll help you." She held out her hand.

Hesitantly, the girl reached out. Then she grabbed the offered hand like it was a lifeline.

"What's your name?" Miss Grey asked.

"I -," she wasn't used to speaking. It took a few attempts before she could form words.

"I don't know."


	6. Chapter 6

Six

"She was being hunted," Jean Grey told the other teachers. They were all gathered in the office that used to be Professor Xavier's. "I only caught some of the hunters' thoughts, but they were enough to warn me to get everyone out of there, especially this girl."

"But why were they hunting her in the first place?" Ororo Munroe wondered.

"She's important somehow. They were under orders to capture her and bring her back to this place that seemed to be some kind of research facility, probably military."

"Great. So we're now harboring a mysterious fugitive from the military. That'll really win us popularity points," commented Logan.

Scott Summers frowned at him. "Why are you here? What is he even doing here? This is a meeting for _teachers_." He emphasized the last word.

"Hey, I teach," Logan retorted. "How to Spot Pompous Asses 101."

"The two of you, stop it," Jean said wearily. "Right now, our priority is to keep this girl safe. I believe she's in very real danger. And, we should definitely find out more about the people who are looking for her. Hank, you still have your contacts over at the defense department, right?"

"Of course," Henry McCoy nodded. "I'll see what I can learn from them about, - what exactly is the information that we want?"

"I got this one word very clearly. _Template_. Someone kept thinking, 'Find the template.' Whatever that could be."

"Well, that could be anything. What about the girl?" Ororo asked. "What have you learned from her?"

"She hasn't spoken much," answered Jean. "And, the oddest thing, my telepathy doesn't work on her."

"How can that be?" Logan said. "Maybe you haven't tried hard enough."

"Oh, I've tried. But it's like she's – completely blank."

"Maybe using Cerebro would help," Scott suggested.

She nodded. "I was planning to do that, actually."

"By the way, where is our little houseguest?" Hank McCoy wanted to know. "I'd like to check on her."

"She's in the infirmary. John Allerdyce is watching over her."

"John?" Ororo was surprised. "Good Lord, he'll probably annoy her so much she'll run away from us, too."

Jean chuckled. "I had thought of that, so I sent Jubilee to do some damage control."

"Knowing Jubilee, she probably only heard the damage part." Ororo stood up. "I better go and make sure everything's all right."

"I'll join you," Hank said. The two of them left for the infirmary.

Logan smiled at Jean. "Looks like it's just you and me."

Scott cleared his throat in annoyance. "I'm still here!"

Logan ignored him. He just kept smiling at Jean until she suddenly burst out laughing.

"Absolutely not, Wolverine!" she told him, then she walked out of the room, still laughing.

Scott glared at the other man. "What did you _think_ to my fiancée?" he demanded.

Logan just smirked at him. "Wouldn't you like to know."


	7. Chapter 7

Seven

For the past forty minutes, he had been doing nothing but watch the weird girl watch him, and the whole experience was beginning to wear on his nerves. She just freaked him out. He didn't know what it was, but there was something about her that struck him as being wrong. Maybe it was the strange stillness she possessed; the way she sat on the bed like a statue, without even a hint of her chest rising and falling to indicate that she was breathing, that she was alive.

"Not much for talking, are you?" He tried to get her to react. "So, what were you running away from? Or who? You don't happen to know a lot of random facts and have a mysterious brand on your chest, do you?"

She just looked at him, completely silent.

"I didn't think so."

"Hey!" Jubilee walked in.

"Jubes! Oh, thank God!" He could have kissed her in gladness.

"Miss Grey sent me down." She smiled at the stranger a bit apprehensively. "Hi," she said. "I'm Jubilee. What's your name?"

"She doesn't know," John answered for her.

"Really? You have amnesia?" she asked. "Oh, you poor thing!" Jubilee approached her but the girl suddenly flinched back. "Okay. No sudden movements then. I'm supposed to help you clean up. Will you let me come close enough to help you with that?"

"Cl – clean – up?" She didn't understand.

"Yeah. You know, like a shower."

"Shower." She nodded. She knew what that was. She got to her feet and quickly stripped off her clothes.

"Oh, God!" Jubilee exclaimed in shock. She grabbed John and covered his eyes with her hands. "Don't look, you pervert! Turn around!"

"_I wasn't looking_!" he protested. He turned his back on the naked girl and listened as Jubilee talked her into the shower. A short while later, he heard the sound of the shower being turned on. "Can I turn around now?" he asked.

"Yeah," Jubilee said. "It's okay. She'll probably be in there for a good while. She looked fossilized with all that mud."

"Yeah," he agreed. "I barely got to see anything."

She cast him a disapproving glance. "Would you make yourself useful and get her some clean clothes? I think our PE sweats would do for now."

"Okay." He went off to get an unused pair from the boys' locker room. When he returned, he handed the clothes to Jubilee and he turned around again and tapped his foot impatiently as the girl got dressed after her shower.

"There!" Jubilee said. "You look much, much better! Doesn't she look better?"

He finally got to see her face without the dirt. She was pretty enough; not the kind that would make a guy stop dead in his tracks, but the kind that would probably grow on a person given time. Nothing truly remarkable about her features, except for her eyes. They were like nothing he had ever seen before. She had silver eyes, shiny, almost opaque, alien-looking. It was incredible that he hadn't noticed them earlier.

"I know you don't remember your name," Jubilee said to her, "but we have to call you something. What name would you like?"

"I don't know." That seemed to be her stock answer to all questions.

"John, help me out here. What name suits her?"

He shrugged. "Just make one up," he told Jubilee. It really didn't matter to him.

"Let me see. Hmm. What about – Ione? I've always liked that name," suggested Jubilee.

John scoffed. "That's a stupid name."

"Okay. Jehane?"

"Even stupider."

"Ersebeth?"

"I feel sorry for your future children," he commented.

"Well, you think of one!" She was exasperated.

He studied the girl carefully. "Kate," he said after a minute. "She kinda looks like a Kate."

Jubilee smiled. "Sure. Kate it is."

"I see you're making our guest feel at home," Miss Munroe said as she came into the infirmary with Mr. McCoy.

"We are. We've even named her," Jubilee informed them.

Mr. McCoy chuckled. "Rather like a pet." He walked toward the girl and smiled at her. She didn't seem to think it was weird that a blue-furred beast was smiling at her, and that pleased him. "Hello. I'm Hank." He held out a paw. She just looked at it.

"Uhm, she doesn't have much of a public persona, I'm afraid," Jubilee explained.

"That's all right. I'm still very pleased to meet you." Mr. McCoy's smile was sincere.

"I'm Ororo Munroe," the other teacher introduced herself. "You can call me Storm."

Slowly, the girl nodded. "Hank. Storm," she repeated their names.

"She's Kate," Jubilee told them. "That's the name we've picked out for her."

"That's a lovely name." Storm smiled.

"Yes, indeed." Mr. McCoy turned away for a moment and rummaged through one of the medicine cabinets. "While you're here, Kate, I would like to take a blood sample," he faced her again with a syringe in his hand, "so we can check for –"

Her eyes suddenly became wide with fear. "Needles!" she hissed. Moving quickly, so quickly that she blurred, she grabbed Hank McCoy by the wrist. She twisted his wrist till he dropped the syringe and cried out in pain as his bones shattered. Then, with no effort at all, she tossed him right across the room.

Three pairs of eyes looked at her in complete shock.

"There was no way I was expecting that," Jubilee said faintly.


	8. Chapter 8

(Uhm, guys, sorry for not mentioning this before, but this is the sequel to 'Last Kiss'. - cue howls of outrage – I know. I should leave well enough alone, but, typical me, I just have to go and mess things up. Forgive me? And forgive the weird science and the liberties I've taken with the characters, too. Please? I've also ripped off a few, okay, a lot of ideas from some of my favorite shows, but it is fanfiction. Who said I had to be original?)

Eight

Her eyes were pitiless as she stared at him. "Define 'Lost her'," she said.

"She managed to slip past our men in the woods," Colonel Roslin reported.

"Of course." Emma Frost was furious, but she carefully retained her composure. "In case you haven't been paying attention to our little experiments over the past three years, a template's average running speed is sixty miles an hour. She could be anywhere by now while your men are still tripping over themselves in the woods."

"Miss Frost," the Colonel retorted, "if you had let us do our job in the first place and shoot her on sight, she would be in the lab right now for you to dissect. I don't understand why you're changing your own protocol in the middle of this operation and insisting that we capture her alive."

It was the wrong attitude to take with Emma Frost when she was already displeased.

"This one is worth it," she told him. "You, on the other hand, - I never really liked you. And I don't appreciate being thought of as a bitch."

A stunned expression suddenly appeared on his face. Choking sounds came from his throat as his body convulsed. Thin trickles of blood started to run out of his ears and he fell to the floor.

She sighed regretfully and picked up the phone. "Callis," she said after dialing a number, "I'm afraid that Colonel Roslin has dropped out of our project."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

_She was sitting on the edge of the walkway this time._

_"Kitty, please," he begged. "Come away from there."_

_"Will you die for me?" she asked._

_"I - " She was suddenly standing before him. She reached out and touched his face. Then she kissed him tenderly._

_"I'll make you die for me," she whispered, and then she pushed him._

John was hollow-eyed at breakfast the next morning. He couldn't understand why, no matter what he or Miss Grey did, the nightmares kept coming back to haunt him. He had gone through the therapy, he had talked his heart out, he had dealt, damn it, - but nothing seemed to work for long. Though he knew, he understood, that there was no way he could have saved Kitty, his subconscious still kept wondering, "What if?"

"Hey!" Carol greeted him with a bright smile. "We're supposed to be monitoring a Danger Room session right about now. Or have you forgotten again?"

"Oh, shit." He finished off his coffee in one gulp. "Great. More quality time with the X-Menettes. Why didn't I go to a regular college again instead of this dump?"

"Because the regular colleges took one look at your transcript and they all went, 'Heck, no!'" she teased.

He didn't even have the energy to pretend to scowl at her. "Har. Har. Fine. Let's go."

"So, I understand we'll have the new girl joining us," she said while they were walking.

He nodded. "Yeah. That's what Miss Grey said."

"What are her powers again?"

"Well, we're not even sure if she _is_ a mutant, but she's fast and strong. I think almost as strong as you. She threw Mr. McCoy across the infirmary without breaking a sweat."

"Really? I think I hate her," she joked. "I've always wanted to do that."

They met Jubilee and Kate outside the Danger Room. As soon as Carol and Jubilee laid eyes on each other, John could almost see the air freeze solid.

"Hi, John!" Jubilee said. "Carol."

"Jubilation." Carol's eyes raked over Jubilee's appearance from head to foot. "You're not in proper attire."

"Oh, I'm skipping the session," she informed them cheerfully. "I'm just dropping off Kate here."

Carol crossed her arms and looked annoyed. "And this is how many sessions you've skipped already? Honestly, what _will_ you do if you ever get attacked and backed into a corner?"

"Hope for the best?" She shrugged. "I gotta go. Look after my girl, will you, John?" Then she was off.

Carol sighed in exasperation. "I don't understand why you hang out with her," she said to John. "She is the most aggravating person I have ever met!"

"She's an acquired taste," he commented.

She turned to Kate. "Well, I hope you have better taste. Come on. Let's formally welcome you to the X-Men."


	9. Chapter 9

Nine

Miss Grey instructed that Kate would stay with Jubilee since she had the only extra bed left in the girls' dormitory. This threw Jubilee into a bit of a panic since she hadn't had a roommate in years and so had never felt inclined to tidy up after herself.

"Just look around for a while," she told Kate as she frantically picked up her stuff off the floor and threw them into the closet. "Let me just wipe out any organisms that may have evolved and thrived on my mess."

Kate nodded. She wandered around the room curiously. One wall caught her particular attention. Dozens of posters and photographs were taped to it, creating a colorful collage of faces. She recognized Jubilee in a lot of the pictures. There was usually another girl with her. She frowned as she studied the photos.

"That's Kitty," Jubilee said as she came to stand beside Kate. "She was my best friend."

"Where is she now?" she asked.

"She's dead," the other girl replied. "She died three years ago." She still sounded sad about it.

"How?" She felt compelled to know more.

"She was murdered. A monster killed her." Jubilee visibly forced herself to be cheerful again. She abruptly changed the subject. "So, anyway, how was the Danger Room?"

"I fought Carol."

"Oh, please tell me you beat her up!" Jubilee exclaimed.

She frowned. "You dislike her. Why?"

"Well, she's just - ," Jubilee shrugged, "Carol. And I wouldn't say that I dislike her. It's more like I just wanna smack her face every time I see her. Marvelous Carol, with her marvelous superstrength and her marvelous flying and her marvelous smackability. Plus, she likes John."

"You don't want her to like John?"

"Yeah. Especially in that very obvious way she has of liking him. Seriously, I know she's like invulnerable, but I don't know how she manages to ignore the truck-sized hints John has been throwing her way that he's not interested."

"What about you?"

"Me? Eew!" Jubilee looked disgusted. "Don't get me wrong. John _is_ hot, especially with that pining for a lost love vibe he's working, but no. I don't like him that way. I like somebody else."

"Who?"

Jubilee smiled secretively. "Oh, someone."

She wouldn't say any more on the subject, so Kate went back to looking at the pictures. "Who is this?" She pointed to one that caught her interest.

"Ooh, good eye for yumminess. That's Peter. Too bad he's on Professor duty in Scotland, or I'll totally fix you up with him. That is, if he's already forgiven me for that last blind date I arranged for him."

There was something about this Jubilee. She talked strangely, and Kate couldn't understand what she was saying most of the time, but she was kind. Kate decided that she liked her.

"By the way, what's with the needle phobia?" Jubilee wondered. "Can I just say major freak-out there with Mr. McCoy? Though it was also kinda cool to see a dinky little thing like you do something like that."

She shivered. "They used needles," she said. "They would come with the needles and make me sleepy, make me weak. Then I would be in the machine and there would be needles hurting me everywhere. And _she_ would be there, and she would make me see things and it would hurt!"

"Hey. Hey!" Jubilee tried to comfort her. "It's okay. You're safe here. No one will hurt you again. We'll make sure of that."

A knock sounded on the door just then. Before Jubilee could tell whoever was knocking to come in, the door opened and Carol Danvers stepped into the room.

"Well, hello there, Miss Invasion of Privacy!" Jubilee glared at her.

Carol ignored her. "Miss Grey wants to see you," she told Kate. "I'm supposed to take you to Cerebro."

"Can Jubilee take me?" Kate asked. She didn't quite trust Carol just yet.

"Oh. Sure, yeah. By the way," Carol smiled, "that was a great session earlier. You definitely need to teach me how to do that headlock."

"She got _you_ in a headlock?" Jubilee interrupted. "Oh, did it hurt?"

Carol scowled at her. "At least she knows how to defend herself. What will _you_ do in a fight? _Talk_ your opponents to death?"

"I was thinking more of intimidating them with my amazing powers of running away," Jubilee said.

Carol's face hardened, but she chose not to respond to Jubilee's last remark. Instead, she just told Kate again to meet Miss Grey. Then she left and slammed the door behind her.

Jubilee smirked. "Danvers, zero. Lee, two hundred seventy-six. That girl has weak mind hamsters. Come on then. Let's get you to Miss Grey."

On their way to Cerebro, they bumped into Bobby Drake. "Hi, Jubes!" he greeted her. "And this must be Kate. Nice to finally meet you."

He looked nice, so she gave him a hesitant little smile.

"Uhm, Jubes," he said, grinning sheepishly, "it's good I met up with you. I was actually gonna go and look for you because I was wondering if, uh, I could borrow your cell phone?"

She frowned. "You're not gonna download another embarrassing song, are you? I still haven't forgiven you for the Kylie Minogue incident." She turned to Kate. "Imagine. There I was at the mall talking to this really cute guy and he was checking out my playlist. He was looking really impressed with the Ataris and Something Corporate, then ouch! _Love at first sight. _And he was like 'Uh-huh'. And I was like 'Curse you, Bobby Drake!'"

Bobby was blushing. "I've already apologized a million times for that."

"Whatever!" She rolled her eyes, but she handed him the mobile anyway.

"You're the best!" Bobby kissed her on the cheek.

Jubilee watched him as he walked away. "He is such a dork," she said, smiling. There was a wistful expression on her face. "Well!" She looked at Kate. "And we're moving on."

When they finally reached Cerebro, they saw that Miss Grey was waiting for them. She wasn't alone, though.

John Allerdyce nodded at them in greeting. "Hey, Jubes. Hey, - you."

"Why don't you all come in?" Miss Grey told them as Cerebro's seal opened. She went inside and they followed after her. "John, if you don't mind, I'd like to check on Kate first."

"Not a problem," he said.

"Is it the nightmares again?" Jubilee whispered to him.

"Yeah," he admitted.

Kate was looking around her with an anxious expression on her face. She wasn't sure why, but this room disturbed her, almost frightened her. There was something here, something she could almost remember. But her mind refused to give her the answer.

"Kate? Kate." Miss Grey caught her attention. "I want you to stay as still as you can." She held a strange-looking helmet that had a number of wires connected to it. "I'm going to use Cerebro to look into your mind. It may feel odd at first, so if you feel the slightest discomfort I'll stop immediately. All right?"

"All right," she agreed.

Miss Grey gave her a reassuring smile. John tapped her lightly on the shoulder. "Don't worry," he told her. "She knows what she's doing."

Despite all their reassurances, she still tensed when she felt the first touch of the telepathic probe. It did feel odd, as Miss Grey had said. Odd. And familiar. She had felt the same thing before. _In the machine._

"Stop!" she gasped. "Stop!" Pain always followed afterward, she knew that.

"Kate! What's wrong?" Jubilee moved to help her when she started to shake. "Miss Grey!"

John Allerdyce caught her as she suddenly collapsed. Their eyes met at the very moment when a secret was unlocked within her mind.

"I died here," she whispered.

Then she phased and the two of them fell through the walkway.


	10. Chapter 10

Ten

"Why the obsession with this one girl?" Callis wondered. "We have other templates with other, better powers. Why not just declare this one as beyond salvage?"

"It's not just her mutant power," Emma Frost explained. "It's her mind. When I was within her mind, I could comprehend theorems and principles, all those mysteries. That's the mind I want for all of our templates. We've managed to extract personalities and memories absorbed by the Rogue and imprint them onto other bodies. Why not intelligence as well?"

"Well, I'm all for radical scientific experimentation, but, speaking from experience, Katherine Pryde has always been a difficult subject."

"We'll make it work," she said. "Even if I have to telepathically rip her mind to shreds, we'll make it work."

"Such vehemence. Could it have something to do with the fact that she and that fire-manipulating boyfriend of hers once got the better of you?" Callis asked slyly.

She was about to make a retort when her secretary buzzed to inform her that Captain Park had arrived. "Send him in," she instructed.

"I was told to report to you, Ma'am," he said once he was in her office.

"Yes," she nodded. "I want to know the status of your mission."

"We may have a lead, Ma'am."

"You _may_ have a lead? You're not sure just what it is?"

He flushed, but he went on. "About seven miles from where she was last spotted, there's a campsite. One of our scouts spoke with a ranger, and the ranger said that on the day we lost track of the subject, a school had reserved one of the campsites but they never stayed long enough to set up camp. Instead, they left almost as soon as they arrived. A Dr. Grey told him that some kind of emergency had occurred, but she didn't give any details and he never thought to ask. The circumstances are suspicious, so we're looking further into it."

"Grey," she repeated. "Dr. _Jean_ Grey?"

"Yes, Ma'am." He wondered how she knew the name.

Callis suddenly began to laugh. "Looks like the little kitty found her way home."

Emma Frost had never looked more dangerous as she did then.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

John stared at her in shock. They had become solid again a few feet before they hit the floor and they had landed hard in a heap of tangled limbs. He quickly extricated himself from her.

"How – how did you do that?" he demanded.

"It's -," she shook her head as if to clear it of disturbing memories, "something I can do. I – I died. I died!"

"Shut up!" he said harshly. "You're not making any sense!"

"I died," she repeated. Her eyes filled with tears. She looked at him as if she was seeing him for the first time. "John?" She took a step toward him.

"Don't come near me!" he shouted. "Who are you? Did _she_ send you? Did that bitch who killed Kitty send you?"

She suddenly screamed. "_Get out of me_! Get out!" She grabbed her head in pain. "I'm not here! This isn't -!"

Hesitantly, he approached her. A thought was growing in his mind. He knew it was insane, but he couldn't stop himself from hoping anyway. "_Kitty_?"

The name clearly startled her. "No," she sobbed. She curled up into a ball. "No. I died. What's happening to me? Help me!"

He knelt before her. "Kitty," he whispered, "is it really you? Tell me. Is it you?"

"John?" She seemed to have trouble focusing on him. "John. I fell. I couldn't fight her."

"Oh, God." He took her into his arms and hugged her tightly. "Kitty!" He held her until Miss Grey and Mr. Summers appeared. He didn't let go as the two teachers led them to the lift and took them to the infirmary. They weren't injured by the fall, but Miss Grey insisted that they still be checked out, just to be certain that they were both all right.

"It's Kitty!" John told them. "She's Kitty. She's alive!"

"John," Miss Grey said gently, "that's not possible. I know that she has the same power as Kitty -"

"But she remembers!" he said. "She knows how she died. I'm telling you it's Kitty."

"John!" she called his name. She looked anxious and confused as she gripped his hand. "She'll come for me. She's done things -!"

"Who?" he asked. "What happened to you? How – Where have you been all this time?"

"The woman. The telepath. She'll try to get me back."

"The telepath?" Miss Grey looked stunned. "The one who attacked the school three years ago?"

"Three – years?" Kitty started crying again. "I've been gone three years?"

"But you're back. You're home now," John said to her. He was smiling so happily that he wasn't aware he was crying, too.

"How can that be?" Mr. Summers' tone was incredulous. "Kitty Pryde died. For God's sake, we were all at her funeral!"

"She did something. There are others, like me. She said she needed soldiers. And she was there, making me do things, and I couldn't move or breathe - !" She was becoming hysterical again.

Suddenly, John's happiness faded. He remembered what the telepath had said to him before it had made Kitty jump off the walkway in Cerebro. It had told him that Kitty had never loved him, that she had only been with him because it had taken over her body and controlled all her actions. The two of them had thwarted its initial attack on the school, and the telepath had been vindictive enough to devise a little plan of revenge against them when it returned. Now all the uncertainties and insecurities those revelations had caused were coming back to consume him.

"I can't use my telepathy on you," Miss Grey said, "so you have to tell me exactly what you remember."

While she talked, John slipped out of the room. She never even seemed to notice when he left her side, and, somehow, that was worse than any pain he felt when he thought she was gone forever.


	11. Chapter 11

Eleven

Carol found him later sitting on one of the stone benches by the fountain. He was staring moodily into nothing. He didn't acknowledge her presence, but she decided to sit with him anyway. He looked like he could use a friend right now. "John," she said hesitantly, "I heard about what happened. Are you feeling okay?"

He sighed. "My girlfriend just came back from the dead. I'm not sure if okay is what I'm feeling."

"You really believe it's her?" she asked.

It took him a minute to answer. "I hope so. I really hope so." He suddenly laughed and shook his head. "Is that pathetic or what? I really want it to be her."

"No." She smiled sadly, finally realizing that John Allerdyce was truly in love and it wasn't with her. Couldn't be her. "It's not pathetic, at all. She must be really, really special for you to love her so much, even after all this time."

"That's the funny thing," he shrugged. "She wasn't that special, not at first. She was just this short, nerdy girl I liked to annoy because she seemed so stuck-up. Then, one day, it was like the universe turned upside down, and I saw her. And I thought that she was amazing."

"Then why don't you go and talk to her?" Carol suggested. "Find out if it's really her. Find out the truth."

"That she never really loved me?" he whispered. It was painful to say it. "To know for sure if it was her when we were together?" He chuckled bitterly. "I'm tough, but I don't think I'm tough enough for that."

"Stand up," she told him abruptly. She got to her feet and pulled him up with her. "This is what's gonna happen. I'm marching you right up to her, Allerdyce, and you are going to ask her those same questions. You're going to know the answers, once and for all."

"Do I have to?" he grumbled, but he allowed her to lead him back to the mansion.

"Absolutely," she nodded.

Once they reached the mansion, they headed for the girls' dormitory. Carol said she saw Jubilee and Kitty go into their room for a tearful reunion before she went looking for him on the grounds. "Oh, hey. There she is," she pointed when they caught sight of Kitty wandering in the corridor.

John wondered why she was wearing some kind of army-looking uniform. "Kitty?" he called out.

She looked at them blankly. Then, without warning, spikes shot out of her body right toward them. Carol reacted fast and stepped in front of John. The deadly projectiles barely pierced her skin. "I didn't know she could do that!" she exclaimed, wide-eyed with shock. "Did you know she could do that?"

"_She is not Kitty_." He was certain of it. Then he looked on in disbelief as another Kitty, or Kate, or whoever the hell she was, appeared. This mirror image suddenly erupted in flames, like a human torch. The duplicates moved as one to attack John and Carol.

"It's official," John swore angrily. "I'm cursed!" He used his power to try to put out Barbecue Kitty, but the creature seemed to sense it and, with an incredible burst of heat, flew right toward him. Carol grabbed him before he got torched, punched through a wall, and threw him to relative safety. "Go! Warn everyone!" she told him. "I'll handle this!"

He nodded. They had practiced scenarios like this in the Danger Room countless times. He knew what he had to do. While she bought him the time he needed, he ran to prepare the school for lockdown.


	12. Chapter 12

Twelve

Jubilee was crying and saying Kitty's name over and over when the alarm sounded. "What the -?" she was startled. "That's level five. The school's under attack!"

Kitty, this strange new Kitty, looked grim.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bobby Drake took off his headphones and listened to the alarm.

Ice formed on his fists.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I'll take the east wing," Scott Summers said to Henry McCoy and Ororo Munroe. Jean Grey stood by his side.

Ororo nodded. "I'm on kinder duty."

"Hank will patrol the west wing," Jean said. "I'll be in the war room. Logan, you with us?"

He gave her a feral grin. "Of course. I'll just be killing things."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Everyone, stick close to your buddy!" Sam Guthrie told the younger children "We're moving!"

Jones punched in the security code and the panic room opened.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Carol Danvers flew along the empty hallways of the school. She had managed to defeat her two opponents, but more had arrived to take their place. She knew she couldn't beat them all, so she decided that to retreat was the best option for now.

_Carol_.

She faltered in mid-flight. Did someone just say her name? It sounded very close, like the person had whispered in her ear.

_Carol_.

She landed on her feet, looking around her and frowning. Who was speaking to her? There was no one that she could see.

A movement up ahead caught her attention. Someone had appeared. A girl. She wasn't a duplicate, but she was wearing a similar-looking uniform though hers had no sleeves. Her bare arms were pale, almost as pale as the white streaks in her dark hair. She watched Carol silently.

"Who are you?" Carol asked.

The stranger didn't say anything.

"Okay," Carol shrugged. "Let's just fight then." With a cry, she charged at this new enemy.

A hand easily caught her and closed around her throat. She tried to throw the girl off her, but she couldn't seem to get a good grip on her adversary. She suddenly felt weak. It was as if she was losing her strength.

When she finally realized what was happening to her, Carol began to scream.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Oh, this is _so_ not good," Jubilee muttered to herself as she ran. She was looking for Kitty, who had done the blurring thing and left her on her own without a word of explanation. There was a procedure to be followed in situations like this, and Jubilee knew she was supposed to be in the panic room by now with the children, but she couldn't go hide when her friend was still out here. She had to make sure that Kitty was all right. The girl had already died _once_, during the last time the school was attacked, so there was a genuine cause for concern about her welfare.

"Where the heck did she go? Kitty!" She was on her way to check the ballroom, just in case, when the scream of someone in pain stopped her in her tracks. Her heart pounding in fear, she followed the sound.

"Oh, my God!" She found herself staring at a familiar figure. "Rogue? _Carol_!" She didn't even think twice. She threw herself against her old schoolmate. The impact forced Rogue to release Carol. But Jubilee now came into contact with Rogue's lethal skin.

She was on the verge of losing consciousness when she felt someone wrench her free from Rogue's grasp. Whoever had saved her had the _coldest_ hands.

Before she slipped into darkness, she saw his face.

"Bobby," she sighed gratefully then remembered nothing more.


	13. Chapter 13

Thirteen

All the younger students were safe and accounted for. "It's done," John reported to Miss Grey over his comm link.

"Good. Hank's in the west wing. He could use some firepower."

"On my way," he responded.

"So, you were saying that they look just like Kate?" Miss Grey picked up where they had left off their earlier conversation.

"Yeah, but with different abilities."

"Be careful then," she cautioned him. "I'm not sure what's going –"

He didn't hear the rest of what she said. He simply stood there, completely stunned, and stared at Kitty.

It _was_ Kitty. It really was her. Her face, the smile he remembered. God, even her scent. She was right in front of him.

"Come," she said, and he could have cried at hearing her voice again.

He followed her.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Kitty raced through room after empty room in the mansion. She had to find him. She had to find John. The telepath was back and he was in danger. She just knew that, this time, their old enemy wouldn't be content with merely causing him pain. No. This time, John would be the one to die.

She turned a corner, and found herself looking at a face that she still had to get used to calling her own.

"Are you the other?" this reflection asked.

Slowly, she nodded. "Yes."

"You know where to find her," she was told. "You know where to find _him_."

Of course she knew. It was the only place they could be. Desperately, she headed for Cerebro. She prayed that she wasn't too late.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Kitty, be careful," he said. "You'll fall." She was standing too close to the edge.

"Will you save me?" she asked, a teasing glint in her eyes.

"I would," he swore. "This time, I would."

"Really?" She pretended to lose her balance and spun her arms around wildly like one of those cartoon characters who were always walking off cliffs. She laughed unkindly when she saw his terrified expression. "Oh, baby. It won't be me falling today," she told him.

"Please. Come away from there." He took a step toward her anxiously.

She just smiled at him.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"John, no!" she screamed when he looked like he was about to jump. He gave no sign that he heard her, but he stopped a few steps away from the edge. She glared at the woman before her. "What have you done to him?" she demanded.

Emma Frost smiled. "Whatever it is, it can still be undone. Just be a good girl and do as I say." She tossed something toward Kitty.

Kitty caught it and saw that it was a syringe. She could guess what it contained. "You want to take me back." It wasn't a question.

"I'm not done with you yet. So just shoot that into your neck and I'll let fire boy go."

"You're lying," she said. "You'll kill him."

The telepath sighed. "It's the hard way then." She took out a gun. "Well, this is familiar. What did I say back then? Oh, yes. Stay solid. Or he dies."

Kitty shook her head. "You never said that last part."

Before the telepath could shoot her, she moved. She phased as she did so, and the bullet passed through her harmlessly. Then she grabbed John as he jumped and hauled him back to safety. He tried to fight her off so she punched him out. All of this took less than a minute, then she faced the telepath again. She was the one smiling now. "You know what," she said, "I like this body. I think I'm gonna keep it."

Emma Frost took an involuntary step back.

"What's the matter? Scared?" Kitty taunted.

"Of what?" The woman looked at her coldly. "Even if you kill me, I won't stay dead. _You_ didn't."

She was suddenly uncertain. "What did you do to me?" she wanted to know. "How did I become like this?"

"Consciousness is a wonderful thing, isn't it?" the telepath mused. "It doesn't have to be tied to the one body where it first awakened. If you push hard enough, you can transfer it to someone else. Or some_thing _else, in your case."

"This body? It didn't belong to anybody before?"

"No. It's a construct, genetically engineered with a dormant X gene that gets activated once a personality gets imprinted onto it."

"And that's what you did to me. What about the Professor? I remember you did something to him. And Peter, and Rogue. I couldn't stop you, but I saw what you did to them."

"Your old boyfriend and the Rogue were easy minds to crack. Xavier, though, - I had a little help with him." She smiled. "You."

"Me? I couldn't have - !"

"That brain of yours. It helped me figure out how to re-program Cerebro so that when Xavier tried to use it to find me after I created that little disturbance with your Peter, he got a mental backlash that hurled him into the deepest regions of his subconscious. He'll be crawling his way out of there for years, if he ever manages to crawl out." She sounded very pleased about this.

"You don't care at all, do you?" Kitty said softly. "Not about any of the people you've hurt, or all the lives you've ruined."

"Not as long as I have my way," the telepath responded arrogantly.

In a second, Kitty had grabbed the gun from her and aimed it at her head.

"What's this?" Emma Frost scoffed. "You're going to shoot me? You know that wouldn't be the end of this."

"I don't care." It was true. She didn't care. She was going to commit murder and she didn't care. She just wanted to hurt this creature who had hurt her.

The telepath glared at her, proudly defiant till the very end. "So, is this the part where you swear you'll make sure I never hurt you or anyone you love ever again?"

"No," she said. "This is the part where I just kill you."

And, looking Emma Frost right in the eye, she pulled the trigger.


	14. Chapter 14

Fourteen

"You know," John smiled down at Jubilee, "for all the times I've attempted to set fire to your hair, or eyebrows, or clothes, and otherwise maim you in creative ways, - I'm actually glad you're still around."

She grinned at him weakly. "Well, I'm a tough girl."

He patted her hand. "You sure are."

"How's Carol?" she asked. "And Rogue?"

"They're both recovering. The duplicates have been shipped back to the research lab where they came from, and the government has threatened to nuke the school if we ever leak what happened to the press. All's well with the world."

"Good."

"I heard you were quite the hero. You saved Carol's life."

"God, don't remind me!" she grimaced. "That was an unfortunate lapse of judgment on my part. She'll probably be all grateful and friendly from now on. Ugh."

He laughed.

She hesitated for a second before asking the question that had been at the back of her mind all along. "How's Bobby taking it? Now that Rogue's back and de-brainwashed?"

"He's happier than I've seen him in three years," he told her.

She smiled. "I'm glad."

"Jubes -," he masked his sympathy with a mischievous grin, "I just thought of the best idea I've ever had."

Her eyes still looked sad, but she was able to match his grin. "Better than the panty caper?"

"Tons better. – You should go out with me," he said. "Seriously. Let's fall in love and ride off into the sunset. I'm sure I can steal a horse somewhere."

She shook her head, chuckling. "Sorry, Allerdyce, but I never fancied being the rebound girl. And, besides, Bobby isn't the only one who's got a reason to be happy after brooding for three years. What about you and Kitty? Have you talked yet?"

"No," he admitted, suddenly looking somber. "I think she's kinda been avoiding me."

"She's confused," Jubilee said. "She came by to see me, and she wouldn't let me call her Kitty. She thinks – she's not who she is."

"Maybe she isn't. Maybe she's not Kitty. Maybe that telepath just convinced her she was to mess with my head. Wouldn't be the first time." He sounded bitter.

"How can you say that?" She looked disappointed in him. "Do you honestly believe that?"

"I don't know." He shook his head. "I just don't know."

"Talk to her," she commanded. "Talk to her, and look past her face. Maybe you'll recognize her then."

He was silent. "That was a very melodramatic bit of advice, did you know?" he finally said, smiling.

"I know!" She screwed up her face in embarrassment. "First, I save Carol, - and now this! Help me! I'm possessed."

"Maybe later." He ruffled her hair. "I'm gonna go and follow that melodramatic advice right now."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He didn't bother knocking. He just walked into the room where she had been hiding from him and found her taking down the pictures taped to the wall. "What are you doing?" he asked, startled.

She barely spared him a glance. "These belonged to someone else, not to me."

Swiftly, he walked toward her and forced her to face him. "Did you ever love me?" he blurted out. He knew he was doing this all wrong, and he should have led up to that question more gently by talking about the weather first or something, but he had to know right now.

"The last thing I thought of," she told him, "before I forgot everything, - was that you had said you loved me. And I was afraid that I would never get to say it back."

"So it was you," he whispered. He tried to embrace her, but she pulled away.

"It was Kitty," she said. "But how can I be sure that _I_ am Kitty? I _think_ I'm her, and I _feel_ I'm her, but how can I know for sure? Three years, John. I was in hell. I've done terrible things, and those are only the ones that I can stand to remember. If I am Kitty, I'm not the same, and you know that."

"All I know is," he said, looking into her eyes, "you're the only one I've ever loved."

He bridged the distance she had tried to put between them. He took her into his arms and he kissed her.

This kiss was different from all the kisses they had shared before. This kiss was a promise – of healing, of second chances, of love.

This kiss was forever.

The End

(Happy ending. Oh, crap.)


End file.
